There was plenty of spin on the first official practice day of the 2010 Ryder Cup and not all of it came on the Celtic Manor greens. "Padraig is playing the best golf of my team out there. He's already had three eagles," said an excited Colin Montgomerie after a morning spent on the course with his 12 players.

Poulter's self-proclaimed penury, it can be assumed, was the second exaggeration of the day. As for Harrington's apparent primacy among the 12 Europeans who spent the day reacquainting themselves (or acquainting themselves, in at least one case) with the Ryder Cup course – well, Lee Westwood, who had eight birdies, might have had something to say about that.

Perhaps the award for "European player of the day" could be shared between the two, just as they arrived in Wales this week having already shared the award for "European player with most to prove".

For Westwood the problem has been a leg injury which has stopped him playing competitive golf for almost two months. For Harrington it has been a run of missed cuts, poor form and swing tinkering that has dented his reputation as the iron man of European golf and, more significantly, fuelled doubts about his worth as a wild-card pick on Montgomerie's team.

And for Europe's captain, the task is to make all of the above seem like much ado about nothing. Typically, he went about this duty with great enthusiasm and more than a little artistic licence, particularly in defence of the benighted Irishman.

"Well, I feel the criticism [of Harrington] was very unjustified to be honest. I know what Padraig can do and that's why he was picked. He was like a rookie out there today," Montgomerie said after the Europe team had finished their practice session. "He's a world player – he's won three major championships and the stature of the guy is second to none within our team.

"There's reasons why Padraig Harrington was picked, and judge me – judge me about that selection on 4 October [the day after the Ryder Cup] and not [today]."

Montgomerie will almost certainly be judged on his wild cards after Sunday's outcome but that will not be the only box to be ticked (or not ticked) on his captain's report card. There will be the line-up he chooses for the 12 singles on Sunday – to top-load with his best players, or the other way around? – and before that there will be the decision he makes when it comes to his pairings for Friday morning's series of fourball matches.

"Oh, nothing really," he said when asked if anything could be assumed from the three fourballs who went out on the course yesterday morning. "Today was just about seeing the course. It was just a practice round."

As bluffs go, this was about as convincing as Dick Van Dyke's accent in Mary Poppins. Westwood played alongside Martin Kaymer in a fourball with Miguel Angel Jiménez and Peter Hanson; Harrington played with Luke Donald, taking the money from Poulter and Ross Fisher; and Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy paired up to beat the Molinari brothers – minimal revenge against the Italians, who edged the Northern Ireland pair out in the final round of last year's World Cup.

"We are going to chat about this evening and see how we want to progress. But you will probably be able to read more into the pairings on Wednesday and Thursday," the European team's captain said.

Pull the other one, Monty. Barring some unforeseen event over the next two days it can be assumed the four pairings will come from the aforementioned six, with Jiménez and Hanson, and the Molinaris being held over until the afternoon foursomes.

The only outstanding issues are which European pairing will have the honour on being first up on the tee – and who will they face? McIlroy and McDowell have been lobbying hard but that might be too obvious and, given younger man's riling of Tiger Woods in recent weeks, it might also be a bit too dangerous.

Clearly, the world No1 – as they say in the gangster movies – would "like a piece" of McIlroy and Corey Pavin would no doubt be keen to accommodate his wishes, and as quickly as he possibly can. Woods and Steve Stricker won all four of their matches together at last year's Presidents Cup match – to wit, it does not take genius to work out they will be paired again this week.

Will the USA captain be sending them out together first thing on Friday morning? "You just have to wait and see," Pavin said, as deadpan as ever. Fortunately for the American cause no points are awarded at the Ryder Cup for rhetorical style, otherwise they would already be one down.